Military Air

The American 345th Bomb Group - the Air Apaches - was legendary in the war against Japan. The first fully trained and fully equipped group sent to the South Pacific, the 345th racked up a devastating score against the enemy. Armed to the teeth with machine guns and fragmentation bombs, and flying their B-25s at impossibly low altitudes - often below 50 feet - the pilots and air crews strafed and bombed enemy installations and shipping with a fury that helped cripple Japan.

Air Force navigators and bombardiers have long labored under the shadow of pilots - their contributions undervalued, misunderstood, or unknown to the general public. This was especially the case with the non-pilot officer aircrew in the Vietnam and Cold War-era B-52 Stratofortress. Of the six people who operated the bomber, three wore navigator wings - two of those men were also bombardiers, the other an electronic warfare officer. Without the navigator-bombardiers in particular, executing the nuclear war strike plan or flying Southeast Asian bombing sorties would have been impossible.

Historian and World War II expert Donald Miller brings us the story of the bomber boys who brought the war to Hitler's doorstep. Unlike ground soldiers, they slept on clean beds, drank beer in local pubs and danced to the swing music of the travelling Air Force bands. But they were also an elite group of fighters who put their lives on the line in the most dangerous role of all. Miller takes listeners from the adrenaline filled battles in the sky, to the airbases across England, the German prison camps and onto the ground to understand the devastation faced by civilians.

For more than 30 years, Giora Even-Epstein flew fighters for the Israel Air Force, achieving recognition as a highly skilled military aviator and the highest-scoring jet-mounted ace with the most num­ber of confirmed victories in the French Mirage. Having overcome numerous hurdles just to learn how to fly, he went on to compile a record of Arab MiGs and Sukhoi kills that bettered any other combat aviators' tally in the entire world. This fast-moving autobiography details his experiences particularly in the intense conflicts of 1967, the Six Day War, and 1973, the Yom Kippur War.

Are you a junior officer, senior enlisted, fresh faced diplomat or just curious? War Winning Strategies covers all the basics of military strategy comprehensively. This concise guid for NATO leaders is for you! In today's fast-paced and ever-changing global landscape, understanding military strategy is crucial for junior officers and aspiring foreign and security policy experts and senior NCOs so we can work more effectively together. This concise 70-page guide provides a comprehensive introduction to the fundamental principles of military strategy, empowering you and your subordinates m to...

Written from the "other side" and told as much as possible through the words of the veterans, this is an important book on one of the most controversial campaigns of the Second World War.

General Douglas MacArthur is one of the towering figures of World War II, and indeed of the 20th century, but his leadership of the second largest air force in the USAAF is often overlooked. When World War II ended, the three numbered air forces (the Fifth, Thirteenth, and Seventh) under his command possessed 4,004 combat aircraft, 433 reconnaissance aircraft, and 922 transports.

…Ben Het has tanks in the wire! “Hawk Claw is engaging,” the pilot reports firing the first TOW missile ever from a helicopter in combat. Fire Base Delta had already been over run and Fire Base Charlie was fighting for its life. How much would fall before the North Vietnamese army was knocking on the doors of the key city of Kontum? This was the third phase of the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive Campaign of 1972. Standing across the country between them and the fall of Saigon was a poorly led South Vietnamese Army, brave South Vietnamese soldiers, and US Advisors. How much ground ...

Flying the notorious "hump route" between India and China in 1943, a twin-engine plane suffered mechanical failure and crashed in a dense mountain jungle. Among the passengers and crew were celebrated CBS journalist Eric Sevareid, a Soviet double agent posing as an OSS operative, and General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell's personal political adviser. Against the odds, all but one of the 21 people aboard the aircraft survived - but they fell from the frying pan into the fire.

Four days before Christmas in 1943, a badly damaged American bomber struggled to fly over wartime Germany. At its controls was a 21-year-old pilot. Half his crew lay wounded or dead. It was their first mission. Suddenly a sleek, dark shape pulled up on the bomber’s tail - a German Messerschmitt fighter. Worse, the German pilot was an ace, a man able to destroy the American bomber with the squeeze of a trigger.

In The Cactus Air Force, Pacific War expert Thomas McKelvey Cleaver worked closely with Eric to build on his collection of diary entries, interviews and first-hand accounts to create a vivid narrative of the struggle in the air over the island of Guadalcanal between August 20 and November 15, 1942.

The Vietnam War is one of the most misunderstood military conflicts in 20th-century America. Showcasing 72 true stories told by American servicemen who fought from the skies, this unique and historically significant collection is a stunning record of the air war in Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s.

With its thunderous assault on the Mariana Islands in June 1944, the United States crossed the threshold of total war. In this tour de force of dramatic storytelling, distilled from extensive research in newly discovered primary sources, James D. Hornfischer brings to life the campaign that was the fulcrum of the drive to compel Tokyo to surrender—and that forever changed the art of modern war.

World War II is usually seen as a titanic land battle, decided by mass armies, most importantly those on the Eastern Front. Phillips Payson O'Brien shows us the war in a completely different light. In this compelling new history of the Allied path to victory, he argues that in terms of production, technology, and economic power, the war was far more a contest of air and sea than of land supremacy.

With a total of 40 victories, Oswald Boelcke was Germany's first ace in World War I-and a century later he remains a towering figure in the history of air warfare, renowned for his character, inspirational leadership, organizational genius, development of air-to-air tactics, and impact on aerial doctrine. Paving the way for modern air forces across the world with his pioneering strategies, Boelcke had a dramatic effect on his contemporaries. The famed Red Baron's mentor, instructor, squadron commander, and friend, he exerted a tremendous influence upon the German air force.

In this second edition of his memoir, previously titled "CIA Super Pilot Spills the Beans," former H-34 and Bell Huey pilot Capt. Bill Collier tells of his experiences flying helicopters in Laos for Air America, during the CIA's secret war waged into the 1970s. It was the war correspondent Anne Darling who described the pilots of Air America as "CIA Super Pilots," and as Collier tells of flying in challenging weather and combat conditions with his best Vietnam helicopter pilot buddy, Gary, the pair shared enough adventure to make any novel seem lame.

This one-volume anthology provides a comprehensive analysis of the role that air power has played in military conflicts over the past century. Comprising 16 essays penned by a global cadre of leading military experts, A History of Air Warfare chronologically examines the utility of air power from World War I to the second Lebanon war, campaign by campaign.

Secrets of Encirclement Warfare: A Gripping Exploration of the Intersection of Land and Air Power Imagine being surrounded by enemy forces, with limited supplies and no clear escape route. This is the harsh reality of encirclement warfare, a tactic that has been used to devastating effect throughout history. From the frozen tundras of World War II to the jungles of Vietnam, encirclement has proven to be a game-changer on the battlefield. In this fascinating and deeply researched book, we delve into the world of encirclement warfare, exploring the successes and failures of this complex and ...

London is burning. The Luftwaffe is coming. And Trip Gibson is in the fight of his life. From the award-winning author of the bestselling Journeyman Chronicles of the American Revolution and Sunward I’ve Climbed comes Frank A. Mason’s unforgettable sequel—a visceral, emotionally charged novel set in the fury of the Battle of Britain. It’s 1940. American pilot Trip Gibson has joined the Royal Air Force, determined to stop Hitler’s war machine from leveling Britain. But flying for King and Country turns out to be far more brutal than he imagined. In the chaos of dogfights over ...

He’s tasted the thrill of war in the skies. He can’t stay grounded now. From the award-winning author of the bestselling Journeyman Chronicles of the American Revolution comes Frank A. Mason’s gripping new WWII aviation saga that blends heart-pounding combat with unforgettable characters. Trip Gibson thought he left the war behind in Spain. Now back at Georgia Tech, he’s trying to live a normal life of football games, women, and fast cars…but the headlines from Europe are getting harder to ignore. When the siren call of the skies pulls him in again, Trip risks everything to chase ...